Featured Tracks:

Since reuniting in 2010, Guided by Voices’ trajectory has essentially played out as a LARP-worthy reenactment of their ’90s narrative. Afteracavalcadeoframshacklereleases from the beloved “classic” line-up, Pollard once again dismantled the group and reformulated it anew. And just as he did about 20 years ago, he’s turned to guitarist Doug Gillard to be his Ronson/Richards-esque right-hand man, and to serve as the steely anchor of a crew that now includes guitarist Bobby Bare Jr., bassist Mark Shue, and drummer Kevin March. After taking this retooled GBV on tour in 2016, Pollard gave them the ultimate recorded initiation earlier this year with the 32-song double-album opus August by Cake, even granting Gillard, Shue, and March lead turns at the mic to fill the vocal-foil role once occupied by Tobin Sprout.

But despite its generously democratic approach, August by Cake’s crazy-quilt sprawl wasn’t necessarily the best showcase of this rock-solid unit’s road-tested roar. In hindsight, the album served the same transitional function as 1997’s Mag Earwhig!, the record that first built a bridge between GBV’s early lo-fi experimentation and high-definition ambition. Now, with the expedient follow-up, How Do You Spell Heaven, Pollard and Gillard get to pretend they’re on TVT Records all over again, indulging their radio-rock fantasies without having to deal with the major-label paperwork or pressure to become the next Weezer.

Much of GBV’s post-reunion output has necessitated some degree of excavation to separate the premium tipples from the proverbial pile-up of crushed empties. But How Do You Spell Heaven requires no such effort. With Pollard reassuming all lead-vocalist duties, this handsomely crafted record strikes a balance of crystalline jangle, authoritative swagger, and Wire-schooled crunch reminiscent of 2001’s (way underrated) Isolation Drills. The album’s most immediate earworms—“The Birthday Democrats,” “Diver Dan,” “Paper Cutz”—bound about like kids running through a sprinkler on the first warm day of the year, basking in the fresh air and sun-kissed splendor. And even songs that initially seem like off-the-cuff oddities prove to be less typical GBV fragments than seeds that blossom in surprising ways: the bossa-nova sway of “King 007” triggers a wailing proto-metal rave-up; “How to Murder a Man (In 3 Acts)” begins as a simmered-down rumble, but soon tries to whip through enough structural shifts to fill Abbey Road’s second side in less than three minutes. (Appropriately enough, it’s immediately answered by a rare GBV instrumental, “Pearly Gates Smoke Machine,” whose lead-guitar trade-offs and audible bonhomie posit it as a gently chooglin’ cousin to the Beatles’ “The End”).

On top of polishing up the band’s sound, Guided by Voices’ TVT releases also showcased a newfound clarity and emotional candor in Pollard’s often obtuse, fantastical lyrics, and How Do You Spell Heaven gamely follows suit. Even Pollard’s most outré songwriting can occasionally acquire some accidental real-world resonance—not the least of which is releasing a song called “Steppenwolf Mausoleum” the very week a member of Steppenwolf passed away. But How Do You Spell Heaven winds down with a trifecta of songs that rank among the most intimate and earthbound in the band’s bottomless canon: “Just to Show You” is a gently sashaying declaration of devotion, while the self-evident “Low Flying Perfection” is a harmony-gilded, country-dusted ballad from a band that’s often in pursuit of high-flying imperfection.

And then there’s “Nothing Gets You Real,” a slice of shimmering melancholy that could pass for mid-’80s Go-Betweens, contrasting its glistening guitar strums with a brutally honest account of how ennui can lead to self-harm: “Something is revealed, slashing at your arm,” Pollard sings, “something you can feel, sounding the alarm.” He once fancied himself the lost soul who shoots himself with rock’n’roll, and certainly Pollard has injected enough of the stuff over 100-plus releases that you couldn’t fault him for becoming numb to its effects. But even in those moments when How Do You Spell Heaven doesn’t give him an occasion to scissor-kick, he sounds reenergized by a sobering sense of lucidity.